'Urine' need of a fertilizer? Try peeing in your flowerpot

My brother-in-law, a farmer from Iowa, tells my wife that human urine is good for flowers. Is there any truth to this?

This is the second question I've had lately involving people from Iowa. I wonder if this is some sort of trend.

The other question was from some newcomers from Iowa who wanted to know how to keep bees away from hummingbird feeders.

You can easily buy bee guards, but stay away from yellow ones. Bees are attracted to the color yellow.

Also, keep your hummingbird feeders in the shade. Bees prefer to feed in bright sunlight. After you move the feeder, leave a dish of sugar water in the old spot and wean the bees away from it.

Now, about the urine question: Your brother-in-law is correct, a rare situation for many brothers-in-law to find themselves in.

Human pee contains a fair amount of nitrogen, potassium and phosphate, all of which are good for lots of plants.

A study in Finland published a few years ago in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that tomatoes fertilized with a mixture of human urine and wood ash produced four times as many tomatoes than those fertilized with more conventional means.

The tomatoes also had more beta-carotene and protein.

So if pee is good for tomatoes, I don't know why it wouldn't be good for flowers.

Just try to be discreet about ... um ... watering your plants, OK? It might be a sight your neighbors would not enjoy.